FAQ

I’ve read all of the Hollows series and i read them once as they come out. i think i missed something because in what book does Rachael loose the ability to use her blood to do witch magic?

She’s never lost it, but she did realize that some of the more complicated spells can’t be invoked by her blood. It’s just different enough because of the demon enzymes that the complicated ones can tell the difference and it won’t invoke.

I was wondering about the coffee drink Al always gets and now has Rachel hooked on, the double espresso Italian with raspberry, cant remember it all now, is it a real coffee drink could I go order it?

If you go into a Starbucks and order a grand latte, double expresso, no foam, with a shot of raspberry in it, you’ll have a very good approximation of it. Oh! and the you have to sprinkle cinnamon on it. It will be really sweet, but enjoy! I like mine made with skim milk to help cut the calories.

Demons can transform into anything and obtain its characteristics in the process (like Al inserting vampire virus into Rachel while pretending to be a vampire). So can’t they… um… transform into female demon and bear a child? For the sake of their species?

I’m sure the elves who cursed them, added a little something to prevent that. Otherwise, why curse them in the first place.

Can witches and elves breed with each other and produce offspring? It’s already been stated that demons can breed with anything have offspring.

Elves and witches can’t have kids without a lot of magic intervention, no.

I think Al has a major crush on Rachel. I think that is why she gets away with all of the stuff she does. Are we going to see something along those lines develope in the next book?

I think Al has a crush on Rachel, too, but it might be simply that he has not had a friend or associate that he respects, and he doesn’t know the difference between love and respect. Writing an all powerful being stumble about like a teenager with his first crush has been fun for me, and I can’t wait to see what happens..

What is the average word count of a Hollows book? Believe it or not, this is a super important question to me as a writer, and I haven’t been able to find the answer anywhere.

It all comes down to location, location, location. I’m not a big city girl, and I knew I couldn’t talk about a city that was too large, so population was a factor. I couldn’t have a city on the coast because the salt would interfere with the magic. I wanted a city big enough for mass transit, but spread out enough that most people had cars. I wanted a river running through it, and I wanted one at the latitude that I could talk about all four seasons to help ground the story. If you add all that up, you get Cincinnati. I was really lucky in my choice, seeing as you have such a rich history of once being the 4th largest city in the US, the end of the underground railroad, the unused tunnels under the city, your world-class zoo, and cultural diversity. Not to mention the pigs. -grin-

I would love to publish my fantasy novel. Can you give me some tips?

I wish there was a ten step process of how to become a published author, but there isn’t. My advice is to keep writing, and finish something! Not just one book, buy maybe a second because it might not be this book that breaks you into print. Start attending writer critique groups in your local area and begin sharing your work (if you aren’t already) And go to writer conferences where agents and editors go to find new talent. You can still catch an agent’s eye by mailing a cover letter and synopsis, but your chances are so much better if you have met them face to face first at a conference. Good luck! If writing is something you love, don’t give up on it. It usually takes a person on average ten years to find publication. I kid you not. Ten years. And it’s totally worth it. –Kim

I’m coming to a signing. How many books can I bring?

Most bookstores don’t mind you bringing in already purchased books, but they do appreciate it if you buy something, anything, while you’re there. (They keep track, and if an author doesn’t have any sales during an event, they will likely not ask them to come back.) It has always been my policy that, in the interests of time, I will happily personalize two books with a small note, and then I will go on to autograph (no personalization) as many other books as you like. Or, you can get back in line and I will personalize two more books with a small note, and so on. If there is a change to this policy, it’s not my doing but the bookstore’s, and I apologize. Dawn Cook books are also welcome!

Is authors writing under different names common and if so why do they do it ?

It is EXTREMELY common, but most don’t come out of the closet so the reading public never knows. The reasons are varied, but the most common is because the author wants to write more books than their publishing house can market, and to avoid the legal entanglements of the original contract, it’s easiest to write under a second name when you move to a new publishing house. That’s the original reason I took mine. A second reason is that big book retailers have a habit of purchasing only the same number of books that an author sold on their last release. If it was a bad release, then the store will only by that many books of the next release, but if it’s an unknown author, the stores will buy more in the hope that it will be a blockbuster. So you write under a different name, and get a better shot at selling through your books. (This also figured into my decision) A third reason an author might take a pen name is because they are writing for a different audience. Going from high fantasy to urban fantasy isn’t a big jump, but if the writing style changed dramatically, as you pointed out that mine had, a pen name might prevent disgruntled readers from leaving the very author that they enjoyed. A final reason some authors take pen names is that they have high-powered jobs, and if it were known that they wrote fiction, it might damage their credibility. To get around it, they take a pen name. Hope that helps. –Kim

Have you ever thought about turning the Hollows into a movie?

I would love to see the Hollows made into a movie, but the interest needs to come from Hollywood, and there just haven’t been any offers that were attractive enough to let go of my rights. –Kim

Are you pagan?

I am not pagan, and I make everything up out of my head, pulling on my reading as a child and adding a bit of logic from my formal schooling in the sciences. I don’t have any “magic” books except the one I bought ages ago to see if I was remotely close. (It was more of a theory then practical application book.) I was never happy with how Hollywood portrayed witches, so I hope I’ve done a service rather than a hurt. –Kim

What’s with the Clint Eastwood titles?

always liked the characters that Clint Eastwood has played, especially the westerns where the guy comes in off the plain, able to solve the town’s problems with a bully, but not all that eager to, but after some persuasion, he does. Not only does he take care of business, but he does it in a just, not necessarily legal way. I sort of see Rachel like that, if Clint had a pixy instead of a gun, and a convertible instead of a horse. Okay, maybe they aren’t that much alike, but the feeling is there. But a more bland aspect is that it was a marketing decision to help make the books more recognizable. If someone comes into the book store, looking for the new book about the witch and the vampire that has a blue cover, they might walk out with Charlaine’ s latest. Not a bad choice, mind you, but if they add that it has a Clint Eastwood like title, they will walk out with mine! Besides, how else am I going to get the man to direct the relax-they-aren’t-going-to-make-it Hollows move. 😉 –Kim

What is magnetic chalk? Does it really exist?

Magnetic chalk . . . I’ve no earthly idea. I made it up, but in my mind, it is chalk that has an element of steel, iron, or other metallic metal that helps link the circle to the ley lines. –Kim

How do you deal with writer’s block if/when you get it

When I get stuck, it’s usually because I’m either trying to make a character do something that I know he or she wouldn’t do, or I’ve not given enough thought as to what comes next. My advice would be to take a day or two and sit down with several pieces of blank paper and just write out freehand what you’d like to see happen, all the way to the end. Once you have an end in sight, it’s easier to avoid writer’s block. Good luck! –Kim

What are the order of the book, shorts and novellas included?

I’ve got a list of the order to read the books and novellas/shorts on THE BOOKS page. That might help. –Kim

My fingers are totally crossed. It’s not up to me, though. We do have a commitment that she will read the rest of the series, though. –Kim

How long does it take you to get one of your novels released? From the time you sit down to write the first notes/outlines.

It takes me about four months to write one, another month or two to rewrite it, and about another month to rewrite it for my editor, and a handful of weeks to copy edit it along with a professional copyeditor. There’s a lot of downtime where I’m working on the next book between rewrites, so in all, it takes me a little less than two years from first notes to last edit. (It sits about a year between rough draft and when I start working on it again.) It takes about a year for a book to become published once I deliver it to my publisher. It’s possible to do one faster, but it costs a lot more. –Kim

What is your short story about in the upcoming “Unbound” anthology?

That would be LEY LINE DRIFTER, and it is a Bis/Jenks short. More than that, I don’t want to say! –Kim

Have you considered maybe writing a prequel to cover the first year that Rachel and Ivy worked together at the I.S.?

I’ve been asked before if I’m going to write a prequel about Rachel and Ivy’s first year, and the answer is, sort of. 🙂 The graphic novel (coming out Summer 2011) takes place in that time. –Kim

I read the newest one and I wasn’t happy with it as a reader. I thought the story with the banshee was good but I wasn’t happy with the tie up of the Kisten murder. I felt like it’d been kind of thrown together and it was like a nagging thought that was “Hi remember me?”

I don’t like spicy food. It gives me gas. –Kim

I don’t like how Kisten died in book 5 but other than that the books are reeeeeeeeeealy good.

That you feel cheated at how Kisten’s death was resolved is exactly the way I wanted you to feel, so I did my job there. Kisten died with dignity and a wonderful legacy of having saved the women he loved. He died with honor, if I may borrow a phrase. But I wanted Rachel and Ivy to be dissatisfied. They wanted revenge. They wanted to rip someone’s heart out to show who ever it was that they were wrong in killing Kisten. Hollywood revenge is not real. It’s satisfying, but not real. I TOOK THAT AWAY FROM THEM ON PURPOSE. I gave them instead a bitter, halfway resolution that most of us face once in our life. And if you felt unsatisfied and bitter . . . My gosh, you felt just like the characters did. I did my job, even if it left you unsatisfied. Hard? Yeah. True to life? Yup. But the series isn’t over yet, and because I like happy stuff, there will be a Hollywood happy ending. Like the end of a picnic, all the weenies will be roasted. –Kim

Are we going to find out the secret behind the blue butterflies?

I sure hope so. Al first showed then in the short story with him and Ceri at the end of the mass market of ODW, and then they showed up in WWBC, and I honestly don’t know for sure what they mean to Al, but they mean something. Sometimes, I don’t entirely understand what things are when I put them in the book, but since we’ve seen them twice, they are clearly important to my subconscious, and they will be back. –Kim

Why was the UK release of The Outlaw renamed to Where Demons Dare

The UK publisher thought that the movie, Where Eagles Dare (that had a British military guy) would be more recognizable to the British public than the movie The Outlaw Josie Wales. They were also concerned about the Wales/Wails issue. (shrug) That’s all it was. –Kim

Are you ever going to write the Vampire Dating Guide?

Oh, dude. No way am I going to make up the vampire dating guide. It is really, really nasty. But I might pull out and develop an excerpt from it. –Kim

I’m dying to know what the rest of the 12 days of [pixy] Christmas are

Funny you should ask about the 12 days of Pixy Christmas. I’m working on that, and should have it for you by next season. –Kim

P.S. It’s up now at the website at the Bits-and-Bobs page.

Why are so many authors jumping to hardback books halfway through a series

This is a marketing decision that the publisher makes, not the author. The way I understand it, paperbacks are cheaper to make than to ship, so if a case of paperbacks don’t sell, the store is instructed to rip the cover off and send it back as proof of destruction. The store then gets credit for the books destroyed, and can use that credit to purchase more. Hardcovers not sold are sent back to the publisher and are resold as “remainders” which is often what shows up at discount chains or bargain prices on Amazon. (It’s a used book, shelved, but not read.) As a rule, the publisher makes more money per unit on hardcover, so as soon as an author can make the jump, they do it. The author gets a big boost of confidence and status among his or her peers, but the reason the publishers do it is . . . money. And I don’t have a problem with that, because if publishers don’t make money, then they can’t take chances on new talent, like me five years ago, and all we’d have on the shelf is Nora Roberts and John Grisham. –Kim

Pixies and elves keep such an unusual sleep schedule, how did you come up with the idea for that? And, what kind of schedule do you keep?

I wanted to have someone awake 24/7 (in regards to witches and pixies) for defensive reasons. That’s why the split schedule. I’m up with the sun, and down with it as well. I guess I’ve got a human schedule. (grin) –Kim

When Rachel made Jenks big did that extend his life???

Yes. –Kim

I was wondering if you could actually explain what an “aura” is. It’s not really very clear in the books and I’ve been a bit confused. Is it actually the soul or is it something else? Also what exactly is a blood balance and why would it be so hard to find?

You can think of the aura as kind of like an electrical field given off by the soul. It’s not electrical, but that’s the closest thing I can relate it to. It slowly dissipates, but since it’s continually replaced, it appears unchanging but for very slowly. Its’s not the soul, but like the reflection of one, which is why dead vampires don’t have one of their own. They suck them in off their victims along with their blood.

A blood balance is the balance between a vampire and his or her lover. The vampire usually wants more than her lover can give, and it’s hard to find a level that both parties can live with.

Does the aura dissipate more rapidly with a living vamp? Is that why they want/need to bite others? Or, are they somehow addicted to acquiring more aura because it feels good?

Living vampires don’t need the extra aura, but I do think they become addicted to it, somewhat, yes.

I am very excited that you are FINALLY coming to Canada! Will you be signing Hollows books or is it just Madison books?

I will sign all the Harrison books. Heck, I’ll sign the Cook titles, too